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NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and AFT President Randi Weingarten react to proposals by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, and William Bennett to arm teachers as a way to prevent school violence.

“Our duty to every child is to provide safe and secure public schools. That is the vow we take as educators. It is both astounding and disturbing that following this tragedy, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, Bill Bennett, and other politicians and pundits have taken to the airwaves to call for arming our teachers. As the rest of the country debates how to keep guns out of schools, some are actually proposing bringing more guns in, turning our educators into objects of fear and increasing the danger in our schools.

“Guns have no place in our schools. Period. We must do everything we can to reduce the possibility of any gunfire in schools, and concentrate on ways to keep all guns off school property and ensure the safety of children and school employees.

“But this is not just about guns. Long-term and sustainable school safety also requires a commitment to preventive measures. We must continue to do more to prevent bullying in our schools. And we must dramatically expand our investment in mental health services. Proper diagnosis can and often starts in our schools, yet we continue to cut funding for school counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists. States have cut at least $4.35 billion in public mental health spending from 2009 to 2012, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. It is well past time to reverse this trend and ensure that these services are available and accessible to those who need our support.

“Greater access to mental health services, bullying prevention, and meaningful action on gun control—this is where we need to focus our efforts, not on staggeringly misguided ideas about filling our schools with firearms. Lawmakers at every level of government should dismiss this dangerous idea and instead focus on measures that will create the safe and supportive learning environments our children deserve.”

Let’s go through this bit by bit, shall we?

First, simply asserting that it is “astounding and disturbing” that some politicians and pundits have called for the rights of teachers to carry concealed weapons (meaning they are trained, have been finger printed, and were vetted locally by law enforcement) into schools does not make so. In fact, what is “astounding and disturbing” is that, even though nearly all of these mass shootings take place in gun-free zones — and too often in schools, where children are compelled to go and are left as sitting ducks — the NEA and AFT continue to pretend that a gun-free zone policy is somehow even defensible.

Secondly, look at the hamfisted rhetorical maneuver that follows: “As the rest of the country debates how to keep guns out of schools, some are actually proposing bringing more guns in, turning our educators into objects of fear and increasing the danger in our schools.” Parsing this, we find a false equivalence, an assertion presented as fact, and an attempt at fearmongering. To wit: the country is looking for ways to keep madmen with guns out of schools, and many of us are proposing the threat of being met with armed defense as a deterrent to prevent madmen with guns to believe they will meet no resistance.

Utah, for instance, allows teachers who have carry licenses to carry in schools. And Utah has never had such a massacre.

And what proof is offered for the assertion that having responsible teachers who have been trained and licensed in the use of firearms inside the schools increases the danger? There are schools and school districts throughout the country that have allowed concealed carry by teachers and staff. Have those schools proven more dangerous than schools holding fast to advertising themselves as soft targets? How’d that work out in CT? At Virginia Tech? And so on?

The fact is, the data is available. Why is no proof offered? More, what does this idea that responsible adult teachers and administrators, many of whom get tenured, can’t be trusted with a concealed firearm to defend the otherwise defenseless in the unlikely event of an attempted mass shooting, say about what union leaders think about those they supposedly represent?

The bromide that “guns have no place in our schools. Period” is nothing more than a foot-stomping insistence that violence will be banned — and the very fact of the ban, coupled with the insistence that we support it — is enough to prevent said violence, once we begin taking away every possible implement that can be used violently.

The fact is this: so long as people can legally obtain firearms, a right protected in the Bill of Rights as a natural right that the government is expressly forbidden to infringe upon, the potential exists for bad things to be done with guns, be they hunting rifles, semi-auto pistols, or “military-style” semi-auto rifles, which are really nothing more than rifles that look scary but that function like any other semi-automatic weapon.

And so long as that potentiality exists, the way to prevent the bad things from happening is to deter people from attempting them. Knowing that their slaughter fantasy could end before it really even gets started by a responsible and legally armed citizen tends to focus the mind of those bent on creating a spectacle of mass death. Which is why they look for soft targets, where they know people are unarmed. Like, for instance, many schools or malls or theaters marked as gun-free zones.

Hell, no teacher even need necessarily be carrying. Because it’s the potential that they are that is the deterrent. And yet the left is so tied to its perverse ideological pieties that it refuses to even allow for the possibility of a solution if that solution flies in the face of one of their deepest held biases.

The rest of the press release — expressing a veiled desire to turn every behavioral problem noted in a child or teenager into a mental health issue — is just the method by which the left can further restrict the pool of potential free men and women. Because as we know, it was this push to “destigmatize” mental illness that lead to the closing of many mental health facilities in the first place. And we all know who pushed that agenda. If legitimate concerns exist about potentially dangerous mental disorders, I’m all in favor of having children seen by qualified mental health professionals, with court oversight regarding any attempts at categorization that would lead to a loss of natural rights. But I’m talking here about things like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, not a tendency to “bully”.

And while we’re ramping up screening for mental defectiveness, it seems prudent to remind these union mouthpieces that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Like, for instance, “assault weapons bans” and “gun-free zones.”

We are constantly having to deal with crises created by presumptuous politicians and delusional bureaucrats — who then tell us the answer to fixing the crises is to adopt the solutions being offered by those very same people who created it in the first place. And in nearly every instance, the “solution” involves the usurpation of individual liberty.

Here, we have the head of the two major teachers unions chiding lawmakers who recognize that wishful thinking and moral posturing won’t stop spree killing.

What they are calling for is peace through strength. And to the left, this has never been palatable, regardless of its effectiveness.

Leading me to believe that the teachers’ unions care less about the safety of the children than they do about their own ideological agenda.

And for the billionth time: anyone intent on shooting up a school doesn’t give a damn that you’re not allowed to have a gun in a school. You’re also not allowed to shoot people, and that doesn’t stop them, does it?

“And for the billionth time: anyone intent on shooting up a school doesn’t give a damn that you’re not allowed to have a gun in a school. You’re also not allowed to shoot people, and that doesn’t stop them, does it?”

Well it may not stop them but at least in macro there is some deterrence. And if you disagree then you want to sell grenades to 18 year olds at Walmart and repeal the murder laws. SCIENCE!(TM)

At some point it may be necessary to ask whether not just the teachers’ unions, but the leadership of the nation itself in broad measure isn’t frankly invested in the actual ignorance instilled in the populace in the sham devices called ‘schools’, as opposed to raising that same populace up from ignorance. There are reasons for this, crazy as the thought may appear at first — reasons seated in the ‘self-interest’ of that political leadership (wrongly understood from de Tocqueville’s point of view).

I have to mention again – if that woman principal had been ARMED with a gun – she could have stopped the carnage with one shot – at the front door – before the kids were killed. Instead, she was UNarmed and she used her body to try to stop the shooter – the shooter who had a gun and was using it. I don’t call that heroism – I call it stupidity.

This is why we should have armed CCH’s in every school and public place. An ARMED citizen can stop a killer who is using a gun or some other weapon. The *killers* seek out places that are NO GUN ZONES as they KNOW they can kill for at least 10 minutes before cops will arrive and even then they can go on for a short time.

“This is slightly off topic, but with 3d Printers, you can PRINT a basic gun now”

You can print some gun parts or if you don’t mind receiver and barrel failure, what is essentially a zip-gun.

Printing good steel isn’t really a thing yet though and 100% carbon fiber barrels with a chromed bore are still way too expensive.

There is a new “proprietary” steel formula (that can be stamped) being developed by an auto company that will supposedly give equivalent strength at around half thickness which means weight might go down and it is suspected to be some sort of powder metallurgy process possibly using magnets while cooling.

There is also a high strength aluminum alloy being developed for car bodies.

Both might have some application for gun barrels and receivers.

Still very little sophistication is required. with a basic machine shop (not even CNC or electric you know how to use tooling and patterns) and some steel stock, a basic gun is never far away. You need a vertical mill, a lathe, a grinder, a drill (don’t drill with your mill!) and some means of steel welding. If you want to mass produce then you need to engrave some stamping dies. Check out the Sten.

There are tribal towns on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan like Darra in the so called demilitarized no mans land that do very little but weld, mill and lath steel to repair, modify and hybridize working guns from junk in trade for what they need or want. They are pretty skilled and are not really trained engineers or anything. They saw a need and filled it and learned as they went.

It’s about feeling safe rather than being safe. Their feelings are what they are and probably aren’t going to change. Whether we allow their feelings to trump our rights and reason, well, the jury remains out.

These are the people whose lovely “zero tolerance” policies have led to kindergartners being suspended for bringing in Lego guns, or charged with sexual harassment for hugging or singing “I’m sexy and I know it” to their classmates. I don’t want them to have guns, either (but yeah, I do want shooters to have to deal with the possibility that they will receive return fire within school property).

BTW what does the NEA do effectively? They are awful at teaching. They are awful at maintaing discipline. All they seem to do is hand out poor quality free lunches to anyone who enters a school cafeteria. Why is their advice sought on ANYTHING? They are synonymous with “sucks”.

We should also acknowledge that part of this can be attributed to public schools becoming almost completely feminized. At my son’s former elementary school* there were only two male educators – the librarian & the drama teacher – and they were both, uh, as feminine as the other teachers, IYKWIMAITYD. Aside from crappy inner city schools that are already heavily guarded and require students to go through metal detectors, public schools are barely equipped to deal with typical boy-style aggression let alone an actual violent intruder.

*My son’s private elementary school is 80%+ boys. He announced that he loves it because it has 7x times more PE time and none of that sitting in a circle on the rug garbage.

There are schools and school districts throughout the country that have allowed concealed carry by teachers and staff. Have those schools proven more dangerous than schools holding fast to advertising themselves as soft targets?

This is actually the strongest part of your argument. A quick Google search doesn’t find any teachers with a CCW accidentally or intentionally shooting anyone on school property in Utah or Indiana (not sure where else teacher CCW is allowed).

It is hard to think this thought about the parents and loved ones of the slain children and teachers just now, but in time, may they not be particularly interested in thinking through the state of the gun-free zone policy (not restricted merely to schools of course), so arriving for themselves at a recognition of the absurdity inherent in it?

And if, in the main, these persons (in a sense magnets to our sympathetic listening) should speak directly to the contradictions in the current gun-free zone regime, wouldn’t they carry an outsized weight in the public argument?

About a “strong” aluminum alloy gun barrel, it’s unlikely. Gun barrels can get very hot with repeated firings. Machine gun and AR barrels can get red hot and soften and warp when abused. It can set gun furniture on fire! MAgnesium is lighter but it catches on fire and burns with a blinding light which is why we make flares out of it. Supposedly Magneisum alloys exist that do not burn (I think they add vanadium?) but they tend to be used for wheel rims. I don’t think anyone has tried to use them for a gun barrel though they’d make a great gun frame for someone who hates he idea of polymer.

Aluminum melts at too low a temperature to make a good gun barrel from.

So you’d need to either cool it or insulate it. Cooling systems tend to be heavy and “crew-serviced” at best or built into an emplacement of some kind at worst.

Insulation is probably a better choice. But it has serious problems too. You could try a refractory (ceramics) and THOSE tend to be brittle so you’d not want to use it in a gun barrel. But a very thin steel or chromed steel lining, surrounded by a really great thermal insulator like “frozen smoke” or (aerogel) surrounded by a strengthened aluminum tube might make for a lighter gun barrel that could stand up to heat. Or not. I’ve never tried it. :) it sounds pretty dumb and expensive to me though.

Cobalt would probably make a good heavy barrel material since it can get really hot without melting. Cobalt is lighter than steel too. The problem is that it is a huge pain in the butt to machine. It is a very tough metal and uses a lot of cutting tools to do anything with it. Yeah. That makes it expensive in tooling and time, a poor choice for mass production gun barrels unless someone finds a way to rapidly and inexpensively machine cobalt. I guess a James Bond villain could get one made and have a machine gun that doesn’t have to worry about damaging its barrel or gas tube with prolonged firing.

The current solution to hot barrels is mainly to just keep swapping out steel barrels or to install a heavy coolant system that usually uses plain old water.

BTW what does the NEA do effectively? They are awful at teaching. They are awful at maintaing discipline. All they seem to do is hand out poor quality free lunches to anyone who enters a school cafeteria. Why is their advice sought on ANYTHING?

Let’s take a sec here and look at part of that quote Serr8d posted earlier:

I have to mention again – if that woman principal had been ARMED with a gun – she could have stopped the carnage with one shot – at the front door – before the kids were killed. Instead, she was UNarmed and she used her body to try to stop the shooter – the shooter who had a gun and was using it. I don’t call that heroism – I call it stupidity.

The stupidity wasn’t the principal’s. The stupidity was on the part of the people who made sure that her action would be both vain and futile. I respect what she did. And that teacher who managed to hide her kids in the closet before telling the murderer of women and children that she was alone in the room as well. They did a hell of a lot more in this instance than the school resource officer (or whatever they call cops in schools) did at Columbine. He road it out in the office.

Which brings me to my real point: armed security is under no obligation to die for your kids or your kids’ teachers. They can go and hide like everyone else and wait for rescue.

Which won’t come until after the shooting has stopped.

This is what the conversation has to be about:

Nobody is coming to save your kids. The adults already on scene have to do it themselves.

The only decision, as far as guns are concerned, is whether incidents like these are rare enough that we collectively accept the losses as the cost of living in a free society, or whether we decide to go the other way: because the possible presence of a handgun in the classroom is also a cost of living in a free society, if we so choose.

Utah, for instance, allows teachers who have carry licenses to carry in schools. And Utah has never had such a massacre.

The one mass shooting at a mall involved an off-duty cop who returned fire and forced the attacker to take cover, thereby stopping him from shooting anyone else. He had to remain under cover until the on-duty cops showed up.

As the rest of the country acknowledges that there is no way to guarantee that guns in the hands of killers are kept out of schools, we are actually demanding that students and teachers continue to be defenseless victims when such attacks occur.

I am pretty sure one of my daughter’s teachers (4th grade) had a gun in his desk, or on his person. It warmed me to no end. There’s a thing going around facebook that says something along the lines of “You’ll trust them with your children, but you won’t trust them with a gun”. I trusted this gentleman with both and knew the latter would help protect the former. Of course he was (is) a good man. Not all teachers are “good”, just like every other segment of the population.

But I’m talking here about things like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, not a tendency to “bully”.

I’d add sociopathy, if it can be determined (most teenaged boys test “positive” until they get into their 20s). Maybe look for dead, tortured critters, lotsa little fires, and bedwetting well past the age of 8.

That and a brain scan to see if the region behind the eyes has been damaged.

Sociopaths, they should be put down like rabid dogs, but that’s way too easily abused, so I say no to any attempt to implement such a policy.

Sociopaths make fantastic salesmen and CEOs. They are wildly successful if their energies are focused on positive goal and not on punishing everyone in thier paths.

Thank goodness for psychotropic drugs for other disorders such as schizophrenia. The patient either gets worse, gets better or dies, medicated or unmedicated. Medicated, he is much less likely to harm himself or others and to live a more tolerable life, but unlikely to hold a job unless it is menial and undemanding.

Bipolars are a pain in the ass. They are fine when they take their meds as directed, but they usually don’t and end up causing themselves and those around them endless grief with their wild mood swings.

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